For the past few weeks, Minecraft snapshots have been slow on new content, but active on the bug fixing front, so instead of the usual biweekly (in the every 2 weeks meaning of the word) roundup, we decided to hold off until some interesting additions piled up. While still not that big of a content update, the 4 snapshots did bring some interesting new changes. Let’s take a closer look.

The first snapshot, 13w04a, added a couple of interesting albeit minor changes. Dispensers got some new functionality like automatically using bonemeal, setting fire and so forth, keep in mind that to simply drop these items, you can still use the recently added dropper block. Mobs will also avoid minecart tracks, a welcome change for anyone that’s ever built or used a big minecart transport system. Finally, scoreboard functionality has been added. It’s a console command and is a server administrator/map maker thing, so an average user doesn’t need to be familiar with it’s various parameters to see the various advantages it brings. There were also lots of bugfixes.

Next up, 13w05a finally introduced one of those features that has actually been in the code for a while, just hasn’t been used yet. Yes, I’m talking about snow height. While possible with editors and present in some tools like Worldpainter, it now works with the decorative snow block (the layer one, not the actual block) in-game. It also rebalanced bonemeal so that it takes 2 to either grow a tree or seeds fully into the wheat stages. Also, BUGFIXES. Aw yea. There was also 13w05b which introduces some more bugfixes.

Finally 13w06a and 13w07a both focused on optimizations to lighting and…wait for it…bugfixes. This might sound boring, but it does make for a more polished experience, which Minecraft was certainly not a mere year ago.

Here’s a compiled list of features, excluding bugfixes:

Added a fancy new Scoreboard system.

Added some new functionality to dispensers.

Taught dispensers and droppers about the 3rd dimension.

Scared mobs away from the dangerous minecart tracks.

Added team based functionality to scoreboards.

Adjusted balancing of bonemeal.

A little late for Christmas, but fully implemented multiple snow heights.

Some lighting optimizations, no bug fixes yet sorry

Slight optimizations to lighting

You can head to the Mojang blog to get the latest snapshot and find out more: